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On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced

two days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief

interchange of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from

midday on the nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity

began which lasted till the morning of the twentieth, when the

memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.

Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity-the eager talk,

running to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants-was confined to

the Emperor's headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day,

this activity reached Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of

the commanders of columns. By evening, the adjutants had spread

it to all ends and parts of the army, and in the night from the

nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty thousand allied

troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices, and the

army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.